Body & Suspension specs:
1982 Volkswagen Golf 1.5 LS
820kg
Adjustable coil over suspension
Revolution 15x7 inch rims
Nankang NS2 185/45 (Picture is 195/50 different brand)
Stock interior
Engine Specs:
2.0l Volkswagen 2E engine block (from MK3 GTi)
Big Valve cylinder head with new valve guides and cross cut valve seats on intake valves
288* Cam with 11,5mm lift + Adjustable camshaft gear
2x Weber DCOE 40mm carburetors with oversized 37mm venturi’s
Flow matched 1,75 inch per cylinder racing exhaust headers
2,25 inch exhaust with two silencers
GTi MK3 flywheel
Driveline Specs:
4 Speed gearbox, GTi MK3 clutch
Fuel/Electrics:
Electric Facet rally/racing fuel pump
Electronic ignition with Bosch ignition module from later VW’s
Engine runs a healthy 150hp at around 6000rpm.
My Off Road Toy
Body & Suspension specs:
198X Suzuki SJ413
XXXx KG?
Raised suspension
15x10,5 inch steel rims
33 inch off road tires
Rotten interior with lots of dirt, mudstains and dust
First and most importantly I will change all the bearings in the engine block and change the piston rings. After this i will use a dremel, etc. To shave off excess material around the valve guides. VW 8 valve heads have some severe choke points in stock trim, so I think i can easily get the cylinder head to flow a bit better without to much fuzz and low rpm torque loss. When all of this is sorted I am going to dyno the car and fine tune the carburetors and ignition (Even though theyre running great as they are). I can easily imagine getting some performance gain by fine tuning
And as a project I am thinking about grinding out lots of material from other Golf big valve heads I have The plan is initially to replicate images I have seen from the likes of Eurospecsport, VWvortex forums and the like.
That’s a nice Golf you have there! Glad to see that there’s still people who can tune their cars without a heap of stickers and badly applied spraypaint
Nice! Those cylinder heads do suck when trying to get some power out of there, but taking too much off from there may decrease the power. When the “holes” in the cylinder head are too big, if the engine was aspirated with turbo, you should get as much as you can out of there. And remember this advice, clean the head properly before fitting it back, because i have seen many good engines gotten destroyed by the little pieces of scrap metal left in there. Any plans to fit a small turbocharger in there?
Nah, in my opinion a turbocharger would destroy this (classic) car even more than excess loose metal would All engine power is the way to go on classic cars, but if I owned a newer golf then a turbocharger would’ve easily come to my mind… I know that the 2E engine block combined with a VW 16v KR cylinder head would give around 8.5:1 compression ratio which is close to perfect for easy turbo swaps
Well changing the cylinder head would also be a great step forward and then making the fuel injection system for the engine. If you do these, horsepower will significantly increase and the lust for more will come sooner or later. and if you build turbocharged motor in there, you can always change it back to NA
I’m not sure how well you know these engines, but the 8v heads are significantly cheaper to get power from than the 16v’s. Performance wise you can potentially get around 210-220hp from the 8v heads. the 16 valve heads will max out at around 220-230hp, but significant low end torque loss will occur and the increased rpm’s will take a larger toll on the internals When it comes to fuel injection, I know that this is cream but I want to keep it period so unless I got hold of something like the old formula vee mechanical injection I would rather go for bigger carbs. Weber carbs are cheap (relatively) in Norway, especially since my brother has connections within the rallycross community
I have to say that i’m not really familiar with these old Volkswagen engines. but when going for turbo i guess the 16v could be better. But of course the 8v head is cheaper. And that’s true that the electric fuel injection its little bit ‘fancy’ and takes time to build one(megasquirt). And you really SHOULD use those Weber’s if you get them cheaper from the rallycross community.
Future plans for the car?
(Even though theyre running great as they are). I can easily imagine getting some performance gain by fine tuning 
All engine power is the way to go on classic cars, but if I owned a newer golf then a turbocharger would’ve easily come to my mind… I know that the 2E engine block combined with a VW 16v KR cylinder head would give around 8.5:1 compression ratio which is close to perfect for easy turbo swaps 
but when going for turbo i guess the 16v could be better. But of course the 8v head is cheaper. And that’s true that the electric fuel injection its little bit ‘fancy’ and takes time to build one(megasquirt). And you really SHOULD use those Weber’s if you get them cheaper from the rallycross community.